ST. MARTINVILLE — Representatives of six Acadiana parishes met with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Tuesday morning to begin discussing how recent, unprecedented flooding may change the way the region looks at its drainage systems.

Within two days of the downpour, the Vermilion River and the Bayou Teche swelled so much that the two waterways connected, St. Martin Parish President Guy Cormier said.

“What made me call this meeting is because that’s not supposed to happen,” Cormier said. “The Vermilion River is not supposed to flow north.”

Cormier invited officials from Iberia, Vermilion, St. Landry, St. Mary and Lafayette parishes, where thousands of homes flooded, to the meeting Tuesday to begin preliminary discussion of a “regional drainage authority.”

Currently, there aren’t any federally approved projects to aid flooding prevention at the magnitude of rainfall seen three weeks ago, Army Corps of Engineers project manager Nick Sims said.

“What the Corps is doing right now is we're in the process of putting together budget solutions to see if we can get some assistance to this,” he told officials. “I believe it is good to start this dialogue right now.”

Many, including nonprofits Acadian Group of the Sierra Club and Atchafalaya Basinkeeper, believe the Atchafalaya levee system built after the massive Mississippi flood in 1927 caused more harm than good.

Harold Schoeffler, chairman of the Acadien Group of the Sierra Club, said a study should be conducted on plumbing needed to direct water into Lake Fausse Pointe’s canal instead of into the Bayou Teche.

There is data available on the region’s drainage and levee systems, St. Landry Parish President Bill Fontentot said, and it's more a matter of putting updated infrastructure in place.

“We’ve done a lot of work. I don’t think we need to reinvent the wheel here,” Fontenot said. “I just think we need to take it a step further. As man intended to protect us from the rivers, now we are flooding ourselves by some of the work we’ve done. The byproduct of that is development in areas that were not previously developed when the levees were put in place.”

Cormier said he plans to continue discussion with other Acadiana officials, including Lafayette City-Parish Mayor Joel Robindeaux, in October.